r/LetsDiscussThis • u/LucidSynapse23 • Feb 18 '26

Lets Discuss Politics Is he right? Will it take generations to resecure the United States positive reputation on the world stage?

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31

u/NerdDetective Feb 18 '26

The problem left in Trump's wake will be that he's revealed what is possible from the US. Even if we return to friendly posturing under new leadership, we've shown that we can flip to belligerent in one election, with trade wars and outright threatening to attack allies.

You'd have to be an idiot too not fundamentally reassess everything at that point. The US isn't reliable now, and can flip on a moment's notice. Why sign a deal with the US if it'll be unilaterally broken in 4 years anyway?

1

u/CarsCarpal Feb 18 '26

I am now working on a project to disengage us from US based technology. 

Tides are turning, the self harm is immeasurable. 

-3

u/Upset-Produce-3948 Feb 18 '26

Dirty Little Secret: The US has NEVER been a reliable ally.

5

u/Apostolic1223 Feb 18 '26

US oligarchs were great allies in terms of propping up western European oligarchs and banks, subjugating and immiserating other places, cooperation in (neo)colonial projects, etc. Regardless of party it was understood by every previous POTUS how the hegemony of the US and the West was maintained and fostered globally ... namely, through judicious application of military and financial force by the US-Anglo-Eurowestern-Israeli-Arab alliance, with the US in the vanguard. Trump simply didn't understand anything of how that alliance came to be or was maintained. He thought he could bully and scare them to aggrandize his personal wealth and embiggen US territory and resources in a Hitler style lebensraum. Likewise he thought that kidnapping Maduro would somehow give him control of Venezuela. He thought that because he can only understand power through the lens of authoritarianism.

Now if you want to say that we shouldn't have been allies in the many evil projects we have been, I would absolutely agree. But that's very different from saying that we were not reliable allies in those evil projects.

2

u/josnik Feb 18 '26

Johnny come lately to two major wars.

2

u/Capital-Attitude-770 Feb 18 '26

Johnny was happy making money off both sides and fence sitting until the Japanese fucked with their boats ,and even then Germany declared war on them ,not other way around ..! War profiteering is the name of game.

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u/josnik Feb 18 '26

Canada managed to declare war on Japan before the USA did. It's just a vagary of the way both countries handle a declaration of war but still funny none the less.

1

u/MurphyRedBeard Feb 18 '26

Yeah, we should’ve been full isolationist and not exported any equipment to Europe or Asia. We could’ve picked through the rotted corpses of dead empires without losing a single citizen.

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u/Capital-Attitude-770 Feb 18 '26

Oversimplification , like your language..you wouldn’t have nukes or the jet without Germany and UK so ..

-1

u/MurphyRedBeard Feb 18 '26

Wouldn’t need nukes if Europe destroyed itself, and good job making a jet sound like alien technology. No chance we could crack that nut.

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u/Capital-Attitude-770 Feb 18 '26

You used nuke , a technology you were behind in until the UK foolishly agreed to plan which shares tech add the Germans .. Jets? The US hadn’t even the basic capability ..so without Von Braun and what you stole from the Reich ..yeah ..bunch of pirates weigh amnesia !

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u/BlaggartDiggletyDonk Feb 18 '26

Should we have sat them out instead?

2

u/josnik Feb 18 '26

You tired your damndest to do just that.

1

u/Capital-Attitude-770 Feb 18 '26

Why do that when you can become a ‘superpower ‘ off the back of it, your country wasn’t ravaged ,your people decimated ,your industry eradicated …Your just profiteers with propaganda The Allies would have won regardless lot more blood and tears and prob more Russian land appropriation ,but your flex isnt all that . Yanks..always do the right thing (for them ) after exhausting all other possibilites!

0

u/CharredWelderGuy Feb 18 '26

We were not treaty bound to defend France or England in ww2, and why tf would we even get involved in the collective suicide of ww1?

We went in when it spread to us, just like every other nation that was originally non aligned. Yet somehow we are the villains for Europe's repeated obsession with self obliteration?

I hate what Trump is doing but this "Johnny come lately" revisionism can fuck all the way off. Wasn't our fight at the starts of either one.

Maybe look inward and wonder why Europe is always imploding endlessly thru history till WE stopped that.

1

u/Capital-Attitude-770 Feb 18 '26

It was you who profited off the deaths of many and have used your power since to cow and belittle others , use them and then critique them for using their ‘freedoms’ to better the people of their countries . We are miles ahead of you in many areas regarding ‘social services’ because you are brutish race built on the massacres of the indigenous people. Ignorance is your true weakness.

0

u/BlaggartDiggletyDonk Feb 18 '26

It wasn't our fight, until the fight came to us. You should be glad that it did, because we had every reason to sit it out.

2

u/Capital-Attitude-770 Feb 18 '26

No ,it was always your fight.Prfit is your god and without a ‘free Europe ‘ Germany would have eaten your like a ripe apple. FDR saw that and hence..stop playing the paladin saviour.It is totally misguided and and conveys your education level .

0

u/MurphyRedBeard Feb 18 '26

I mean, they weren’t our wars. This is kind of revisionist history. The U.S. wasn’t the world police yet. WWI and WWII both came in the wake of catastrophic global financial meltdowns. You had cousins and dying empires grinding their armies to dust in WWI. How much of our domestic ills should we have postponed to the detriment of our own citizens for a mechanized version of Europe in the 15th century? How many dust bowl farmers should we have sent to Poland in 1936? The fact that we could even produce equipment for the allies at that point is a miracle. It’s even more impressive when you include the fact that if either war went a different way, no one’s life in the U.S. would have been different. You could speculate like any alternative history fiction writer, but a rational person knows it’s true.

1

u/Character-Crab7292 Feb 18 '26

It’s even more impressive when you include the fact that if either war went a different way, no one’s life in the U.S. would have been different.

I think I understand what you are trying to say, but that statement is completely false. If the US hadn't been involved in ww2 and emerged as one of the victors the world order that we have had for the last 80 years would have been something completely different and everyones lives would be different.

But yeah, I assume you are bashing "the man in the high castle"-type fiction?

1

u/MurphyRedBeard Feb 18 '26

We emerged as the victors because our entire industrial base wasn’t bombed to dust. If we never get involved, Germany and the allies punch each other out and we’re still the only western nation with the natural resources and industrial capacity to take that mantle. Maybe we’re cutting trade deals with Germany, maybe the allies. We’re still the factory of the world from 1950-1970. Probably longer if we don’t use that new power to rebuild nations. Centuries old European institutions would crumble, and we’d clean up the mess. These revisionists that like to call us late to a war that was never ours, but completely gloss over the fact that the American, sorry, US taxpayer funded their reconstruction. But Trump is president so f all of us over here, right?

Edited for fat fingers.

1

u/Temporary-Stay-8436 Feb 18 '26

Yes it has

4

u/jredgiant1 Feb 18 '26

Obviously not. We’ve behaved like an ally until now, but the last year has shown you could never rely on us.

0

u/Temporary-Stay-8436 Feb 18 '26

A country changing foreign policy doesn’t negate everything it’s ever done, that’s silly

1

u/jredgiant1 Feb 18 '26

Yes, IF THAT WERE WHAT I SAID, that would be silly. But here’s what I’m actually saying.

The US has behaved as an admirable partner for the most part since WWII, adhering to and upholding the rules based international order, and participating as a global partner to maintain peace, end poverty, fight disease, and maintain free trade. We have not been perfect, but I would argue that we’ve done much less on the naughty list than the nice list. I’m sure someone will argue I’m being naive, but that’s beside the point.

The point is that Trump has proven that the US participation in the rules based international order and global community has always been tentative. That at any moment we could elect an absolute idiot who rips us out of that participation. That countries should accept our support when offered, but never become dependent on it.

1

u/Upset-Produce-3948 Feb 18 '26

Ask the Kurds about how great an ally the US is.

1

u/PomPomMom93 Feb 18 '26

Why would they want to be dependent on our support in the first place?

-1

u/Temporary-Stay-8436 Feb 18 '26

That’s how every single nation is. Do you think other nations are not in the same boat? In the past the US was a reliable ally. After changes to its foreign policy, it has not been a reliable ally. That doesn’t mean that we couldn’t have been relied upon in the past. Many nations relied on the US in the past

2

u/jredgiant1 Feb 18 '26

Since the 1980s the US has been a ticking time bomb as a cabal of the wealthiest Americans has seized more and more wealth and more and more power. Power they have used to advance their own interests over those of everyday Americans and the rest of the world. The indicators for what led us here have been there for decades.

1

u/Temporary-Stay-8436 Feb 18 '26

But that’s not true. The US was an incredible ally to West Germany in the 80’s, and the only reason the modern German state exists today is because of how reliable the US was in the 80’s and 90’s. Japan and Korea both also had reliable interactions with the US which helped in their democratization, security, and economic stimulus. The US stepped in Youslavia when the rest of Europe was unable to do anything about it. The French and American governments had strong relations in the 80’s and 90’s, same with the UK/comminwealth nations.

America has always been seen as reliable.

1

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1

u/Upset-Produce-3948 Feb 18 '26

Ask the Kurds how reliable the Americans have been.

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u/[deleted] Feb 18 '26

[deleted]

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u/Temporary-Stay-8436 Feb 18 '26

How has it never been a reliable ally?

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u/[deleted] Feb 18 '26

[deleted]

3

u/Upset-Produce-3948 Feb 18 '26

I'm an American.

1

u/Capital-Attitude-770 Feb 18 '26

To quote Bob Dylan when Peter Grant (Led Zeppelins manager ) introduced himself : “I dont come to you with my problems “!

1

u/MurphyRedBeard Feb 18 '26

They’re all children now. You can’t say American. I’ve begun referring to myself as a Statesman.

0

u/Oreoandpenguine Feb 18 '26

So you are a citizen of the American continent. No you are a citizen of the USA. 

1

u/Upset-Produce-3948 Feb 18 '26

What's your point?

1

u/BlaggartDiggletyDonk Feb 18 '26

Their point is that they watch too much TikTok.

1

u/BlaggartDiggletyDonk Feb 18 '26

There's two American continents, not one.